As Gov. Jerry Brown seeks an unprecedented fourth term as governor, he seems ever aware of both his age and his legacy.

His immediate response when asked about the 2018 end of temporary tax hikes approved under Prop. 30: “I will be 80 then.”

And although in the policymaking world four years can fly by, Brown said it feels like it’s a long time away. He has an ambitious agenda for those four years, should he be re-elected in November — high-speed rail, tunnels under the Bay Delta, slashing the state’s $340 billion long-term debt, among other goals.

Brown is already the oldest serving governor of California, but as he characteristically and adroitly shifts between history lessons and policy details, dropping literary references along the way, he may be the only one thinking about his age.

Most pundits think he is a shoo-in for a return to the Governor’s Office. In January, he had a record-high job approval rating from Californians, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll. According to the poll, 58 percent of adults and 60 percent of likely voters said they approve the way Brown is handling his job.

Brown faces more than a dozen challengers, lead by GOP candidates Assemblyman Tim Donnelly and former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari. Under the state’s new top-two primary, the top two vote getters in June will advance to the November election.

In his first term, Brown has largely been credited with eliminating the state’s $26 billion deficit by convincing lawmakers to cut the budget and voters to approve new taxes. He was recently named one of Time’s 100 most influential people for doing as much. He also helped usher major pension reform through the legislature in 2012 and this week proposed a plan to fully fund teachers’ pensions — long considered one of the state’s most concerning unfunded liabilities — within 30 years.

“We are getting stuff done,” he said Friday during an interview with this newspaper’s editorial board.

While Brown has built a reputation based on fiscal austerity — prioritizing reducing the state’s long-term debts and largely rejecting his fellow Democrats’ calls for increased social spending — he speaks passionately about two very large infrastructure projects: the nation’s first high-speed rail line, at a cost of $68 billion, and two tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, at a cost of $25 billion.

Advertisement

Despite criticism that high-speed rail is a major waste of public funds and the court challenges to block the project, Brown remains both cerebral and passionate in his support.

“This is not a time for Lilliputian mindset of smallness,” Brown said Thursday.

He says high-speed rail is not only a great environmental solution to transporting people between the north and south of the state, but also cheaper than building more lanes on the crowded highways 5 and 99.

“There are always people who are concerned. There were people concerned about the transcontinental railroad… the same thing was said about BART… the same thing was said about the Panama Canal,” he said. “Being able to unite the north and the south is particularly important when we are so fragmented… I want to be a builder not only of a project, but a builder of a common endeavor.”

Brown evokes the “can-do spirit” of California.

“This is well within our capacity and well within the California dream,” he said.

Still, though voters in 2008 passed a $10 billion bond for the planning and construction of the project, last year less than half of likely voters in the state — 43 percent — said they supported the project, according to a Public Policy Institute of California PPICpoll.

Brown is even more adamant about the urgency to build tunnels below the Bay Delta, which would not only address environmental and legal concerns in the imperiled delta, but also secure the state’s water supply against the risk of an earthquake or rising sea levels destroying the delta’s earthen levees.

“They will fail, and if they fail it will be an absolute catastrophe,” Brown said. “These tunnels are not only a bargain, they are an absolute necessity.”

Still, Brown remains extremely cautious on other big spending in the state, for things like universal pre-K, a priority for Democrats in the statehouse. Lawmakers have proposed using a portion of growing revenues for social spending.

“The desires are endless, and they have been transmogrified into needs, then rights, then laws, and that means spending,” he said.

He said he is working instead to pay down the state’s debts, both those acquired during the state’s budget crisis during the recession and long-term unfunded liabilities.

As those are increasingly addressed, California will be in a better position to use growing revenues for education. That means when the temporary taxes approved by voters in 2012 under Prop. 30 expire in 2018, the state will have the funds to continue funding education at the same level.

Brown added that California is increasing social spending, to cover growing Medi-Cal expenses resulting from 3 million more people being covered by the state’s health care program for the poor, and for education as required under Prop 98.

“The average per child funding is going up $1,800 in the next four years,” he said.

Still, Brown said is very cautious about supporting other additional spending and is determined to avoid the boom and bust cycle that has defined state finances for years.

“Out of the last 15 years, we have had 11 deficits,” he said. “There are a lot of issues here I am going to look at very sympathetically, but I have to keep my eyes on the money.”